


tantrum

by aerials



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Fantasy, M/M, semi-au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 21:47:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18949291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerials/pseuds/aerials
Summary: a quiet fall day should be a day where two boys can find peace in one another - a quiet fall day in Hawkins is a day set to destroy that peace to ensure it’s something that can’t be found again.a follow up to dizzy.





	tantrum

Fall brings crisp air and an array of warm colours to contrast the chill. This is where Steve thrives, under tree’s etched with memories of the summer, in quiet clearings that just two months ago were buzzing with people. Steve feels grateful; grateful for little things like the crunch of dying leaves under his boots and the warmth of Billy’s hand against his own. He recalls the fall before, recalls meeting Billy for the first time with gazes too hot and unholy, laced with a hatred that would fade and be replaced by adoration. He recalls the knuckles he brushes with his thumb, coming into contact with his face and how he’s not scared, knows that Billy would never do anything to hurt him. Not now, not ever again. Steve brings that hand to the lips it’d left bust and bloody and presses kisses to the taut skin.

Billy thrives more in the summer, in unrelenting heat, where if he closes his eyes tight enough he can almost convince himself he’s back in California. He misses days of just driving with aimless abandon, both windows down. He recalls days when Steve would complain about the lack of AC in his car and how, despite clammy hands, Steve would always place his hand over his on the gear. Billy misses driving far enough out for them to find a place no-one knew about, where they could jump in the water and swim without prying eyes or fear of getting caught. Billy thinks that the only good thing about fall is how much Steve loves it and Billy can’t remember the last time his own happiness had come so much from seeing someone else happy.

It had been Steve’s idea o come out to the clearing, to lay out a blanket in a small recreational area by the lake, set way back from the hiking trails. Though he didn’t really have a choice in the matter, it wasn’t like Billy could really say no. Not when he descended into the kitchen to find a picnic basket all made up and Steve with the most delighted expression, like a kid on Christmas. Not when Steve had insisted it was warm out, despite it only being 65 degrees. Not when Steve already had the blanket and drinks packed away in the car. Not when Billy will jump at any chance he gets to spend time alone with Steve, despite the pair practically living with one another.

Fall brings the memory of monsters lurking beneath the surface, of a tunnel beneath the ground overrun by rabid dogs. Steve recalls the gate being closed and doesn’t feel concerned going to wide open spaces alone, spaces where the ground would rumble with what moved beneath. Steve doesn’t feel the rumble anymore, hasn’t for a long time, hasn’t had a nightmare in a long time. He doesn’t feel the need for the bat with Billy around and forgets it’s in his car, covered by clothes and hidden by a gym bag. His trunk no longer carries the remnants of monsters to be buried, it carries baskets of well-made finger sandwiches with Billy’s favourite filling inside. They carry snacks they both enjoy and an overwhelming sense of safety they’d both found in each other.

A quiet fall day should never be sinister, should never be marred by danger or fear because a quiet fall day is just what it says it is. A quiet fall day is the kind of day love can find peace over cans of coca cola and in sweet stolen kisses. It’s the kind of day when Billy and Steve can exist as one, with backs pressed against the ground and hands pressed together. Billy finds his peace with his ear pressed to Steve’s chest, listening to the steady rate of his heart and how it jumps slightly, increasing when Billy presses chaste kisses to his jaw. Steve finds his peace in Billy’s hand against his thigh, grounding him as he whispers ‘I love you’s’ into the others hair. They both find peace skipping stones across the lake, celebrating each time one of the rocks make it to the other side. They both find peace pressed against a tree, with hands under shirts and tugging hair, with mouths pressed in desperation.

Steve feels it before Billy does, the rumble beneath their feet, the threat of something moving, following their footsteps. Billy assures him that it’s just the current of the water, that there’s nothing to worry about and Steve believes him because Billy would never let anything to hurt him. Not now, not ever again. It’s just that, it’s not Steve that is at risk of being hurt and deep down Steve knows that as he tosses another stone across the water. It sinks as he hears the snarl of something all too familiar, of something that haunted his dreams for months. He turns to see the ground being ripped away and there’s an echo of the earth falling into an abyss mixed with the sound of his own name. Of Billy calling his name.

It takes seconds for Steve’s feet to carry him to the hole, to find Billy grasping at the earth in a desperate attempt not to fall. Steve catches his hand and braces himself against the crumbling soil to pull Billy back to safety. Panic sets in as Steve feels his grip loosen, feels the sweat from the exertion create a slip between their hands that makes it hard for him to hold on. He feels the ground wear from where he’s pressing his feet and Billy stares up, eyes sad but accepting, like he knows this is his fate. Billy is tired, he feels something luring him and a gravity like pull that urges him to fall and so he does, pulling his hand from the safety of Steve’s. 

“No!” Steve cries, a guttural sound that rips everything out of him and he’s crying, tears hot against his cheeks as he claws at the ground and tries his damnedest to reach Billy as the ground begins to close over him. “Billy!”

Time stands still, Steve sits frozen in the spot they’d laid together in not thirty minutes earlier. He feels the warmth of Billy’s body on the blanket as he pulls it to him, now ripped and disheveled from the fight and Steve feels his entire heart leave him. A quiet fall day shouldn’t be sinister but in Hawkins Indiana, that’s exactly what it is. A quiet fall day should end with the pair going to dinner with their family of misfits, it shouldn’t end with a broken heart and not knowing if the person you love is dead or alive. A quiet fall day should be a day where two boys can find peace in one another - a quiet fall day in Hawkins is a day set to destroy that peace to ensure it’s something that can’t be found again.

 

*****************

 

“What do you mean, it took Billy?” Max asks, seemingly all too calm, like it isn’t her step-brother that’s missing. It’s almost like she doesn’t want to accept that he could be gone, like maybe, just maybe all those times she’d wished for something awful to happen to him before they’d become close had finally come back to bite her. 

Everyone else is on high alert, anxious and unsure. They closed the gate, that should have been the end and they all know it. El’ gave everything she had to ensure there was no way they could get through, she killed the demo-dogs that had terrorised the streets and killed so many at Hawkins Lab. That was supposed to be the end.

“We were at Hickory Creek, everything was fine and then the ground opened up. I don’t know what happened, he just… he disappeared,” Steve recalled, hands shaking at his sides as the entire scene replayed in his head like a bad movie. 

“Someone opened the gate,” El’ utters as she steps forward, her movements slow and everyone notes the way she holds onto the wall for stability. The closer she gets to Steve, he more her head pounds. “I can feel it.”

There’s a fear that settles over everyone, covering them like a blanket, heavy and hot. Nobody wants to go through this again, especially not Joyce. She lost someone she loved, almost lost her son on more than one occasion and having to go through that again is the most frightening concept. Steve can’t think, can’t breathe. There’s a sense of foreboding that Steve feels deep in his stomach, a tightness like someone has kicked him all too hard with steel toed boots. Steve feels like he’s drowning, lungs filling with water and sealing his demise. Billy was always there to anchor him when he felt that way, now Billy was gone and so was all hope.

“Alright, this is how it’s going to go,” Hopper announces suddenly, he’s already donned his coat and his hat, his gun is holstered at his hip. He breathes deep, bracing himself for what he was sure was long behind them as he places a hand on El’s shoulder. “Steve, El’ and I are going to Hickory Creek. Everyone else stays here, where it’s safe.”

“I’m coming too,” Nancy insists and Hopper is quick to disagree, if the gate is open he can’t put anyone else in harms way. He attempts to put a stop to it, knowing that if he lets Nancy go along then by proxy, everyone else will want to go with them. “No buts, I can use a gun. You need me.”

Hopper hates that she’s right but having that kind of back-up against ethereal monsters, should anything go south, is really exactly what they need. Steve? Well, Steve is grateful. Nancy isn’t perfect and it had taken a long time for her to come around to the idea of Steve and Billy being together, it took her a long time to understand that the happiness that Steve felt was unparalleled to being with her that Billy was his person in the way Jonathan was hers. Nancy knows that if it were Jonathan missing, even after everything, Steve would still be there to try and get him back and Nancy wanted to do the same for Steve. 

 

******************

 

A number of what if’s run through Steve’s head as they drive back to the clearing. He's leading the way, with Nancy in the passenger seat and behind them, Hopper tails the car with El' in the truck. There’s a reluctance to even make the trip, as desperate as he is to get Billy back. He wonders what he’ll find when they get back, what if the ground is completely closed over, like nothing ever happened. What if Billy’s body has been chewed up and spat back out and the remnants are laying beneath the tree they’d carved their initials into. Steve considers every worst case scenario with restless legs, his thigh jumping against the seat as he attempts to focus on the road. Nancy notices it, the way he can’t seem to sit still, every nerve in his body alive with anxiety. She can practically hear his heart beating loud and fast within is chest.

That’s when Steve finally allows himself to breathe, when Nancy reaches across the console to place a hand on his arm and she squeezes it gently, attempting to bring him back to earth. “We’re going to get him back,” she assures but something in Steve’s stomach says that even if they do, he won’t be the same. He won’t be his Billy.

“I don’t know what I’ll do if we don’t,” Steve utters softly, voice cracked from a mixture of crying and the silence that had come after. “I finally had everything together, I finally felt like I really belonged with somebody and god, after everything, you think ‘I get it, I’m prepared for the worst’, but you never think it’s going to actually happen. You hold out that hope anyway and that’s what kills you.”

“It was never like that with us, was it?” Nancy replies but there’s no sadness in her voice, perhaps a little bit of relief. She’d gone so long harbouring this guilt for what she did to Steve, for breaking his heart but now she was starting to see that it was never hears to break. Yes, she’d hurt him and a lot but Steve’s heart was always waiting for that curly haired boy with haunting blue eyes to come and claim it. 

“No, it wasn’t but I didn’t know that until later.”

“You really love him, don’t you?” Nancy asks, like she hadn’t heard the two of them say it to one another over the last few months. It’s just that Nancy hadn’t really thought about it too much, hadn’t expected that they were really in love. Thought that Steve walked around with his heart on his sleeve and said that he loved when he really just liked the idea of it. Nancy didn’t think that anymore, not sitting next to Steve right now, not seeing the determination in his features, the way he gritted his teeth. Not after hearing his heart and sensing the fear that came with losing Billy earlier that night.

“More than anything.”


End file.
